The Great House Project
Welcome to The Veatch House
Our Gallery
Soon (hopefully) we'll be able to give you a tour of the rooms inside.
—Christopher and Erin
Christopher took this picture while Erin was inside talking to our Realtor Brenda. Little did we know then that deer on the property is a near daily occurance. It's so rare that we don't get a daily deer sighting, that when we don't, Erin remarks that they "must have the day off" or be on vacation. We haven't gotten around to naming them yet.
Our house is surrounded by a creek on three sides. The house is in a valley and built into a hill. It's actually quite secluded. We have no real neighbors. What we do have is a bridge. We love this bridge and Christopher is absolutely fascinated by it. We plan to name it someday. For now we are calling it the Henrik Lundqvist Bridge. Let us know if you want to buy naming rights!
Our house is mostly built into a hill somewhat like a Hobbit hole except we have an actual roof. This means no windows on the ground level on the north side. We also have no basement. But what we do have is a woods as our front and side yards. We had the DNR out to give us a "Brush Management Plan" and to inventory our trees. We have quite a few different species with only a couple classified as invasive (Christopher looks forward to cutting these down and turning them into woodshop projects.)
One of the unexpected aspects of this house is how absolutely creepy it is at night. There's little light pollution that makes it down into the valley. Sure, you can see some city lights off in the distance if there are no leaves on the trees, but for an in-town acreage it gets quite dark at night. Downright spooky.
This is one of Erin's and my favorite views on the property. This is looking south off the bridge. We love how the trees cross above the creek. This is like a postcard that we get to live in.
Christopher took this picture becasue the front yard had a flock of Northern Flickers hanging out in it. He excitedly sent it to Erin, but she couldn't see any in the photo. All she saw was leaves. Zoom and enhance! You will probably see a lot of this bridge. Christopher is fascinated with this bridge and thinks buying it was one of the coolest things he's done in this lifetime. Our yard isn't as big as it looks in various photos, but Christopher is excited about the idea of restoring much of it to natural prairie and to plant more trees.
So far we haven't gotten tired of deer sightings. They aren't tame and will run away if they feel you've come too close, but often they just watch us go about our business (rudely staring). This is the first picture Christopher was able to capture of a deer crossing the bridge. Does are more common during the daylight than bucks are, but we do still see the occasional buck. Christopher wants the companion shot to this one of a buck crossing the bridge.
We have ten or eleven different kinds of trees on the property. (Christopher can't find the list.) Oaks, maples, bitternut (which the deer seem to like), black walnut, white polplar (invasive), some Colorado pines, and some fir or pine tree that's indigenous to Iowa.
Here's an actual photo of our house. There are a few super expensive houses built up on the hill behind our house. We have the valley pretty much to ourselves though, and when the trees are full of leaves you can't see any other houses from ours. Our nearest neighbor is on the other side of the creek and we like it like that.
We have a fairly normal size lawn for an Iowa lawn. So too big! And it just happens to all be right in front of the house. Christopher has been doing research on the idea of allowing a large portion of the property to be reclaimed or to even plant native prairie plants.
This shot looks like it was taken at night, but it was an overcast day. It also looks like the shot was in black and white, but there's some color in there. You just have to look closely. Or maybe not.
Our house has two front doors. One on the lower level, one on the "upper deck" and another right past the stairs going up to the deck. For some reason, delivery drivers insist on putting packages on the uppser level when the downstairs door is right there! We're not really "deck people," so it makes sense we'd buy a house that has four decks.
Gallery Statement
I have a goal for 2025. Take a picture of something worth taking a picture of each day. I'm not setting out to win awards or to become a professional photographer. I just want to record what I find beautiful, what brings me joy, sparks my interest, or I find cool and noteworthy. All of the above photos were taken on our property. The above were interesting enough for me to want to preserve them in some manner. Now, I'm sharing them.
Every photo above was taken with either an iPhone 16 Pro or a DJI mini drone.
—Christopher